The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (The Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mysteries) (34 page)

Not Rachel. “Stacy,” I whispered, remembering her
insistence on using her real name the night she got drunk. Forcing myself back
to her side, I tried to look at the scene objectively.

How do cops do this?

I teared up every time I looked at her poor
crumpled shell, so I focused on analyzing the area around her instead.
Everything looked exactly as it usually did. With the exception of the sprawled
body. That was different. And then I realized it was
really
different.

Rachel was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Pretty
average attire for northern Wisconsin in the autumn, but I had never seen her
out of the church approved skirt and blouse uniform. Had she been in the
process of leaving?

A closer look made me question whether she had
even been killed here or not. The front of her sweatshirt seemed sopping, but
it was the only blood I could see anywhere. At least, without moving her body—a
big CSI no-no.

Even her hands, palms up, were pale alabaster
cups—not a speck on either. So, she couldn’t have done this herself.

Rule out suicide.

I glanced down the aisle to the door. I had lost
track of time, but I knew Beth should have been back ages ago. Suddenly fearing
the worse, I trotted out to the porch to see if she—or anyone else—was coming.

I had a clear view to the lodge. The yard, in that
surreal, universe-ignoring-death kind of way that always felt so out of sync
after someone died, looked as serene. Two women—Talitha and Martha, I
thought—walked in the direction of the dining hall. Their shared laughter at
some joke made me wince. I debated calling out to them, but held back.

I didn’t hear any sirens, either.

Then the world jump-started with a bang as a small
group burst out of the lodge entrance. Talitha and Martha stopped to stare.
Justus and Casper half dragged and half carried someone out the door. A
writhing, bellowing, cussing, auburn-haired dervish kind of someone. Maliah
came out after them and stood with her arms crossed, watching their progress. I
lunged back inside the temple and ran to a window.

Beth was making them work for every inch they
dragged her. One second she would resist, pulling away from them both, then
she’d fling herself forward, causing the men to trip over their own feet. The
whole group went down to their knees several times. The third time, she made
the fall work for her, landing on top of Casper, where she took the opportunity
to sink her teeth into his neck.

After that, she wasn’t the only one screaming.

But by the time they reached the temple, she’d run
out of steam. Still, she made them drag her as she hung like dead weight
between the two. Both men had tomato-red faces and panted like they were
auditioning for a phone sex gig. They surprised me by not stopping at the
temple. As they passed, Beth lifted her head and found me in the window. She
mouthed, “Get out.”

If she meant for me to get out of the temple, I
couldn’t agree more wholeheartedly. Their treatment of Beth didn’t bode well
for whether they planned to alert the police about Rachel’s death. My guess was
that Maliah had refused to let her use the phone and when Beth insisted, Maliah
had called in the two men. Somebody must have called through to Father, though.
I couldn’t see Casper or Justin acting like that just based on Maliah’s
authority.

 If she meant for me to get out of Megiddo
completely, that wasn’t happening. I wasn’t leaving her.

I snuck out of the temple using Father’s side door
and waited around the corner until Justus and Casper returned down the path
just minutes later. They hadn’t had time to go all the way to the meth camp, so
I knew they had stuffed Beth somewhere much closer. I figured their first stop
would be the temple to investigate and I was right. As soon as I heard the
front door close, I scooted up the path to the isolation cabin.

The padlock was locked. I felt just as helpless on
this side of the door as I had on the other. I tapped on it and heard rustling
inside.

“Beth?” I called.

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to figure this out, Beth.”

“I know. You need to get out of here. I told them
I was alone when I found Rachel, but while those two bozos might have believed
me, I doubt Father will. Whatever he decides to do about Rachel, he won’t take
the chance that I told someone and that someone would be you.”

“I can’t leave without getting you out of here.
You’re too vulnerable.”

“If they stuck me here, they aren’t going to hurt
me. I think they just want to shut me up and keep the situation under control
until they decide what to do.”

Maybe. But maybe not.

I
hurried back
to the temple and hid around the side of the building. I couldn’t be certain I
hadn’t missed Casper and Justus, but I was betting on the shock value to have
kept them occupied during the time I had talked to Beth. After a long time, I
had about decided I had missed them when the temple’s front door opened. The
two stood in the entryway and talked in hushed tones. Luckily, the breeze was
coming in off the lake and I could hear them clearly. Casper seemed to be
trying on an alpha-male role. He even dropped his voice to manly-man range.

“You stay here while I go report to Father. He’ll
let me know what he wants us to do next.”

“Why don’t I come w—”

“No,” Casper overrode Justus’s offer. “It’ll be
better this way. Gabriel won’t be back from Duluth until eleven or so. It’s up
to us to keep this under control. You stay here and make sure nobody stumbles
in on… that.”

“How am I supposed to—”

“Just keep everyone away. It’s not rocket
science.”

By Justus’s half-muttered “whatever” I knew he was
far from pleased with the arrangement. I was, though.

As soon as Casper had crossed the driveway to
Father’s house, I took the chance and darted into the temple.

Justus startled at my entrance. Even in the gloomy
light, I could see his skin glistening with sweat, either from his exertions
controlling Beth or just plain fear. My bet was on fear. A curl of dark hair
fell over his left eye, obscuring my ability to read him.

“What are you doing here?” He spread his arms and
used his body to block my way, although I had no intention of pushing my way
back inside. Been there, done that. Unlike Casper, fear or the sudden, weighty
responsibility thrust on him had reduced his voice to an adolescent stridency.
His eyes were wide and his nostrils flared. Tension thrummed off his body like
a downed wire. He cleared his throat and tried again. “You can’t go in there,
Letty.”

I needed to speak to the emotional current—fear or
the need to control; for my purposes it didn’t matter which—that held him in
its grip.

“It’s okay, Justus,” I said in a
mama’s-here-and-it’s-gonna-be-all-right voice.

“You, um, have to leave,” he said. “Right now.” He
shot a look over his shoulder and when he turned back to me, his face had paled
two queasy shades lighter. Despite his words, his shocked, staring eyes pleaded
with me.
To stay? To help him deal with this crisis he had been thrust into?
If I played this right, and if I had the time, I could probably mold the
situation for my own purposes. He was scared to death and desperate for
guidance.

But did I have the time? Casper or any of Father’s
other henchmen could show up any second. I would lose any hope of influencing
either Justus or the situation, and I didn’t harbor any illusions that Justus
would stand by me against the other church leaders. I sighed. I still had an
alcoholic’s innate distrust of direct truthfulness. It just seemed so… flimsy.

“Justus, I know what happened. To Rachel, I mean.”

His eyes widened so much I was afraid they were
going to pop out of his head and roll down the aisle.

“No. I mean, I know she’s dead. I don’t know how
or who. But I know…” I pointed to the temple’s interior. “Justus, I need you to
listen to me.”

Justus started shaking his head. This twist didn’t
fall under the orders he had been given, and he was light years from being a
natural-born leader. His face scrunched with effort at having to process my
awareness of Rachel’s murder as well as the need for him to make an independent
decision about what to do with me. Obviously, I wasn’t going to just forget what
I’d seen.

I saw the moment when he stopped trying and
reverted to the script he had been given.

“You need to leave.” Justus pushed at my shoulder,
but I held my ground, trying to peer up into his suddenly flat eyes.

“You have to let Beth go. It’ll be okay. And then
we’ll leave. I promise. You can come with if you want.”

He looked incredulous. “Why would I want to leave
the Elect? I’m finally moving up. And after everything I’ve done for that old
man? No way. Uh-uh. Besides, it’s too late now.”

“Why is it too late? What did you do?”

His eyes squinted and a cold determination seeped
into them, finally pushing fear and doubt aside. He had just identified the
threat. And it was me.

“Justus—”

“Shut up. You don’t know what’s going on. You
can’t know. You’re just a woman.”

My patience snapped. “Do you think you know what’s
going on? It’s all falling apart, Justus. Eli’s gone and Moses is—”

“Exactly,” he said. “Exactly. Eli and Moses are
gone. Even Gabriel is gone. So Father needs to depend on somebody. That somebody
is going to be me.”

I closed my eyes and took a deep, steadying
breath. When I opened them, his features had set with implacable firmness. I
tried anyway.

“Is this how you’re going to get ahead? By
covering this up and following orders like a good, little Nazi? Think, Justus.
This is murder. Someone killed Rachel. That isn’t something that’s going to be
kept quiet, and neither is holding a woman against her will. You need to make
this right. You need to—”

He backhanded me across the face. My cheek stung,
but I was more shocked than hurt. He seemed just as surprised. Even more so
when I hauled off and belted him in the nose so hard I felt something crunch
under my fist. This was becoming a habit.

Then I ran away.

I couldn’t be sure if they would come after me, so
I waited before going back to the isolation cabin for Beth.

But when I got there, the door stood open, the
cabin empty. I crept in and checked the bathroom, but it was just as deserted.
As I crossed back to the door, I spied a dark stain. I bent down, put my finger
to it. Wet. I held my finger up to the light. Red.

Blood.

Chapter Thirty-One

C
asper had said
Gabriel wouldn’t be back until just before lunch. I ducked and darted my way to
the main parking lot and looked to see if the church van had returned. It
hadn’t, so I tucked myself in between the hedge of bushes and the wall of the
lodge.

The incident with Justus made my stomach churn. I
couldn’t believe he had actually struck me. I hadn’t been hit by a man since I
was nine. And what had he been talking about?
What had he done for Father?
 

I had to pee. If Gabriel didn’t get here soon,
there was going to be an in-the-bushes kind of incident. I worked hard to
ignore the urge. A few minutes later, I was rewarded with the sight of the van
pulling in. Gabriel parked in the middle of the lot, which meant I’d be awfully
exposed, but least he was alone.

A surge of doubt rose in me. I really didn’t have
a feel for this man. I didn’t know if, or how far, I could trust him. I had
just failed miserably at swaying Justus. On the other hand, now that I had
screwed that up, what did I have to lose?

And what choice did I have?

Taking a deep breath, I stood, the bushes cracking
and rustling all around.

Scared the crap out of Gabriel, that’s for sure.
He dropped into a defensive crouch, feet spread for balance, arms up and ready.
He relaxed when he saw it was me.

I scooted across the lot, grabbed his hand, and
pulled him around the side of the van.

“Letty, what—”

“Shh!” I peeked around the van to see if anyone
had seen us. All was still.

When I turned back, a wariness had seeped into his
eyes.

“What the hell is going on?”

It was the first time I had ever heard him swear.
For some reason, I took it as a good sign, but talking to him was still a risk.
I peered into his eyes—a light, no-bullshit brown. His met mine easily, and
other than concern for my unusual approach, appeared guileless.

I swallowed, then said, “They took Beth.”

His eyebrows shot up, but the rest of his body
stilled. After a few moments, he said, “What are you talking about?”

“Justus and Casper. At first they locked her up in
the isolation cabin, but she’s gone now. And, um, Rachel is dead.”

He looked like I had punched the air out of his
guts. His mouth opened and shut a few times as he tried to process the glut of
information.

“Rachel?”

I nodded.

“How did…?”

“She was murdered. In the temple, or at least,
that’s where Beth and I found her body. Beth went to phone the cops, but they stopped
her. That’s when Justus and Casper dragged her to the isolation cabin and
locked her in it. I went to Justus to ask him…” My throat closed in anger at my
naiveté in thinking I could just ask Justus to let my friend go and he would…
for me.

Gabriel reached a hand up to my cheek, but held
back from touching me at the last minute. “Did Justus do that?”

I nodded. I had been ignoring it, but my cheek
still felt hot and it stung. I felt strangely embarrassed at Gabriel’s mention
of it. Almost ashamed, which I knew was stupid. I reminded myself of the spurt
of blood from Justus’s nose and felt a
little
better.